China Arrests 3 Suspects In Saturday's Deadly Knife Attack

Chinese paramilitary police stand guard outside the scene of a terrorist attack at the main train station in Kunming, Yunnan Province, Monday. Knife-wielding assailants left at least 29 people dead in the attack.

Mark Ralston
/ AFP/Getty Images

Originally published on March 3, 2014 5:22 pm

Police in China say they have arrested some of those responsible for a massacre that took place at a train station Saturday, according to state media. The attackers used knives to kill 29 people; they injured more than four times that number.

Three suspects have been captured, reports Xinhua. The state-run agency cites a report from the Ministry of Public Security saying that with the arrests, it has now accounted for the eight people who took part in the attack.

"Police shot and killed four of them" Saturday night, "and captured an injured female at the scene," Xinhua says.

One man who survived the attack and is recovering in a hospital spoke to NPR's Frank Langfitt. Here's the report Frank filed for our Newscast unit:

"A doctor daubs the sutured gashes on the skull of Zhuge Ruicchao and rewraps his head in gauze. Zhuge was visiting southwest China's Yunnan Province for vacation. But the 70-year-old ended up in the hospital instead. "On Saturday night at the Kunming rail station, he says, a figure in a black dress and veil began slashing at him with a knife."'When the attacker stabbed my mouth, I felt the pain and unconsciously clenched my teeth,' he said. ' I grabbed the dagger from the person's hands and stabbed back once — I don't know where exactly.'"

Frank says that officials in China report having proof that the attack was the work of Muslim Uighur separatists. He also notes, "Uighur groups have roundly deplored the attacks." In a report for today's All Things Considered, Frank discusses the attack, and the Uighurs, in more depth.

Police say the group of attackers was led by a man named Abdurehim Kurban; it's not yet known whether he might have been among those arrested or killed, the South China Morning Postsays.

On Monday, some 2,000 delegates at the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in Beijing observed a rare moment of silence in honor of the attack's victims, the newspaper adds.